


Baby It's Cold Outside (because we're on an uninhabitable mountain)

by clefairytea



Series: Peaks and Valleys Adjacent [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 00:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16799803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clefairytea/pseuds/clefairytea
Summary: ‘Uh, look, I don’t want to be the downer here, but are you sure he’ll even appreciate this?’Red’s Mom stared at Blue, the kind of million-yard gaze both her and her son were such experts in.‘It’s Winterstar,’ she said simply, tone completely calm, but her grip tightened on the gift in her hands, crinkling the paper. She glanced down, smoothed down the wrapping, and then thrust it into Blue’s hands.‘I don’t think my son would enjoy being alone on Winterstar,’ she said, simply, ‘Even he doesn’t like his solitude that much.’Blue sighed, running a hand through his hair. He didn’t come back from Kalos for winter break for this. Running around delivering Red his care packages wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time.-Blue visits Red over the holidays.





	Baby It's Cold Outside (because we're on an uninhabitable mountain)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays! Have some bratty 19-year-old Blue being bullied up a mountain. Vaguely Peaks & Valleys compliant, I guess? Requested by anon on Tumblr.

‘Uh, look, I don’t want to be the downer here, but are you _sure_ he’ll even appreciate this?’

Red’s Mom stared at Blue, the kind of million-yard gaze both her and her son were such experts in.

‘It’s Winterstar,’ she said simply, tone completely calm, but her grip tightened on the gift in her hands, crinkling the paper. She glanced down, smoothed down the wrapping, and then thrust it into Blue’s hands.

‘I don’t think my son would enjoy being alone on Winterstar,’ she said, simply, ‘Even he doesn’t like his solitude that much.’

Blue sighed, running a hand through his hair. He didn’t come back from Kalos for winter break for this. Running around delivering Red his care packages wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time.

Then again.

Nor was running his gym.

Or being at home with Gramps.

In fact, he’d have much preferred to stay in Kalos over the winter break. Yet, when he’d said as much, Professor Sycamore and everyone else there had acted as though he’d just said he’d rather spend Winterstar at the bottom of a sewer.

That was something he hadn’t known about Kalos. For Kalosians, Winterstar was something you spend with your _family._ They had big shindigs about it. Basically everyone at his university was going home for the holidays, and even Sycamore was planning to return to the extended Sycamore clan (a family reunion Blue couldn’t even fathom). So, he’d have ended up spending his winter break hanging out in Lumiose by himself. Just him and his Pokémon, pretending to have a good time in his student flat while everyone else sat down to a family dinner.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t have dug up some cute dude from _somewhere_ that’d be thrilled to be quick fling with Blue Oak for a week or so. That was, in spite of Lyra’s frequent mockery, not actually beyond his abilities.

The problem was, if everyone in Kalos ran off to their family over Winterstar, the only kind of guy available to fawn over a celebrity for the week…well…

They probably wouldn’t be the most stable dates in the world. Blue would be lucky to come out of that one with his spleen still inside his body. At _best_ he could hope for him to run off to the tabloids and cause a commotion.

So, Blue came home. Expecting to spend the week in old Oak family tradition: Gramps in the lab, too scatter-brained to even _remember_ it was a holiday. Daisy would spend the day baking gingerbread with the kind of manic energy that only came from trying to pretend everything was great for a younger sibling’s sake. Gramps rush back in late in the evening, offering fumbling apologies and hastily pulled together presents. It wasn’t exactly a _great_ tradition, but hanging out with Daisy for the day was never bad.

And then Daisy decided this was the year she’d actually get a serious boyfriend. A serious this-is-probably-going-to-be-your-brother-in-law-one-day-Blue-so-BE-NICE boyfriend.

So, that was Blue. Ditched by the entire culture of Kalos (because they dared have different traditions than Kanto), by his older sister (because she dared to want to get laid on Winterstar for once), and hy his grandfather (because…well he was just like that).

Blue looked again at the package in his hands. Thinking of it like that, he didn’t really have an excuse not to go. But…

‘Can’t I just take you up there instead?’

Masami;s shoulders stiffened, and her gaze dropped to her hands. Blue knew immediately he’d said the wrong thing. What a surprise.

‘I don’t think. I’m not sure Red appreciates me up there, in his space,’ she said softly, as though pulling something tangled and painful from her very depths. Blue bit his lip. Great. Great. Awesome. Landmine – officially trod on.

Thinking quickly, he went for what he usually relies on when he was uncomfortable – being a prick.

‘Please, he loves you,’ he said, waving a hand dismissively.

‘I don’t doubt that,’ she replied quickly, ‘Just. I don’t understand what he’s _doing_ there, and I know he knows that. He knows how much I want him to come home. And I think it…well, I think it hurts him. But I think it’s easier to have you up there. You understand whatever he’s trying to achieve far better than I do.’

‘I don’t get it at all.’

‘No,’ she said firmly, a tone that accepted no argument on the matter, ‘You do.’

Blue fell silent at that, looking again at the wrapping paper. The Winterstar print – Delibird and giftboxes – was so garishly cheerful, he was sure staring at it too long would give him a migraine. He couldn’t honestly say he had anything better to be doing. And he’d want to go visit Red at some point during his trip home _anyway_ , it was just…

‘Just. Bit of a weird holiday to be spending just the two of you,’ he grumbled.

Masami sighed, and rolled her eyes.

‘Oh darling. _Do_ grow up,’ she said.

That was incredibly hard to argue with.

‘Fine, fine. I’ll make the delivery.’

She clapped her hands, face brightening up so quickly it was though her previous melancholy hadn’t even existed. Blue suddenly suspected he was on the receiving end of a con.

‘Fantastic,’ she said, standing, ‘Now, I’ll just pop upstairs and get the rest of it…’

‘The _rest of it!?_ ’

#

‘You know what my problem is, girl?’ Blue shouted over the searing cold Mt Silver winds, ‘I’m too _nice_.’

Aerodactyl made an unsympathetic squawk, far more preoccupied with not being buffeted out of the sky by the hail to deal with her trainer’s self-pity. Blue sighed, gripping Aerodactyl’s neck tighter, the flakes of snow and pebbles of hail already rendering his goggles nigh-useless.

This was so stupid. Red probably didn’t even know what month it was, never mind that it was a national holiday.

‘Too nice,’ he muttered to himself, his voice muffled by his scarf.

Finally, Aerodactyl found an opportunity to land, swooping down toward the weird hobo-cave Red insisted on making his home. She landed with a thump in the soft snow, wings splayed, tail, still with its precious cargo strapped in place, curling forward to be unpacked.

Blue slid off her back.

‘Good job, girl,’ she said, patting her nose. Aerodactyl made a soft noise, breathing gently as Blue turned to untie the packages from her tail. Alakazam had teleported up with the rest. Blue would have been happy to just send Alakazam up, especially in this weather, but teleporting food always had a fifty-fifty chance of spoiling it. Considering Blue couldn’t promise Red wouldn’t just try eating spoiled food _anyway_ , he didn’t need that on his conscience.

Package hefted onto his back, he returned Aerodacty to her Pokéball and entered the cave.

‘Hey!’ he called, tugging his scarf down to his chin, ‘Happy Winterstar!’

He could see firelight round the corner. A yellow face peeked over a rock, ears twitching and eyes narrowed.

‘Hey, rat,’ Blue greeted. Pikachu just crackled her cheeks in warning. Blue sighed and strode past her, to where her master was mutely staring at the sack of goodies Alakazam had delivered. Alakazam had already sat down and went straight back to meditating, apparently having entirely lost interest in human affairs for the day.

Blue put down his packages, releasing a grunt.

‘Courtesy of your mother. Kindly delivered by myself,’ he said. Red turned to look at him, and tilted his head to the side.

‘You don’t even know what day it is, do you?’ Blue asked. Red shook his head, looking as though that were an obscenely stupid question to ask. Blue supposed that, in all fairness, it was.

Blue sat down, his back aching from the long flight.

‘It’s Winterstar. You know, that holiday just before the end of the year? We land-humans like to celebrate it,’ he said sarcastically. There was a brief look of realisation in Red’s face, before being replaced by one even more puzzled than before. He pointed at Blue, the question obvious - so why are _you_ here?

Blue’s face was already red from the cold, at least, so Red’s interrogating stare couldn’t make it any worse. He huffed.

‘Just open your presents,’ he snapped, stretching out his hands closer to the fire.

Red stared at the mountain of presents as though certain one of them contained a live explosive, and then hesitantly took one into his lap, seemingly at random. Long, rectangular box. Light as a feather, and apparently didn’t contain food.

It was weird, watching someone else open presents first. Daisy had always let him open his first. And he never wasted time carefully unsticking the sellotape and unfolding the paper the way Red did. Even now, almost 20 years old, he just dug his nails in and tore it open as fast as he could. He supposed, unlike him, Red did everything slowly. Unless he was dismantling a criminal organisation.

Finally, Red pulled the box out of the wrapping, setting it on his lap.

‘Ha, Stantler antlers,’ Blue said, laughing, leaning over as Red opened the box, ‘Look, there’s a stand for it and everything. She must have a string of fairy lights somewhere in here too.’

Red pursed his lips, and Blue rolled his eyes. He leaned forward and tapped a little green heart symbol on the top corner of the package, right under the cheery Goldenrod Department Store logo.

‘Ethically sourced. Sheddings, not forcibly taken from a live Stantler,’ he explained, and then glanced up, stomach lurching at a sudden thought, ‘You never seen this before?’

Red shook his head.

‘Eeeh…guess that’s a symbol that only came out after you came up here,’ Blue said, and then rattled a box, ‘Look, here’s the lights. Open it up and decorate it. It’ll make this literal hole a bit merrier.’

Red shrugged and began to unwrap it, delicately sliding his fingers under the tape. It was like he was trying to open the paper with as little noise as possible. Blue sat cross-legged, watching him with fascination. For a normally pretty brusque dude, he was so gentle about such odd things.

Blue had been entirely correct – inside was a small box of fairy lights, a long cord of pale brown wire with tiny bulbs dotted up and down its length. Red scowled at the tangle, and immediately began to try to unwind it, mouth taut.

‘Always used to make Daisy do this. Worst chore of the season,’ Blue said cheerfully, leaning over to take one end of the fairy lights. Red glanced up at him, mouth twitching, and then returned his gaze to his hands, carefully unwinding coil after coil. He looked so focused, Blue couldn’t help but smile.

‘Y’know in Unova they actually think the whole “Beaste Crowned in Antlers” was Arceus, not Xerneas?’ Blue said. Red looked up at him, made a face, and then shook his head vigorously.

‘I know the whole story probably didn’t _actually_ happen,’ he said, sighing, ‘I’m just saying, it’s interesting how they had a different take. Apparently the original text was first translated into Unovan as “Beaste _Wreathed_ in Antlers”, so that’s where the difference came from. They still decorate them with fairy lights, though.’

Red looked up, suddenly interested. Blue’s stomach did a funny backflip that he _really would prefer it didn’t._

‘Yeah, Lumiose is pretty spectacular this time of year too. I mean, it’s spectacular all the time, but with the lights and the snow and all that stuff? You better believe it’s something to see,’ he continues. Red’s gaze was set on the fairy lights in his hands, as he untangled them coil after coil. Blue paused, irritated at being ignored, but Red nudged him gently with his foot.

‘Huh? Want me to keep talking? Well…you know you never need to tell me twice,’ he said, and Red glanced back down, somehow looking a little more satisfied than before, ‘They go way overboard, get huge carved bits of wood that take up half the freakin’ living room, or real Sawsbuck antlers, specially bred to be enormous. In fact, they do Winterstar way harder than we do in Kanto generally. Was kinda freaked out by how non-stop it is. And like, they actually believe the stories. In a literal way. I mean, a lot of them do. Some of them don’t.’

‘And, it’s…y’know, not a romantic holiday over there,’ he continues. Red’s hands still on the fairy lights, just for a moment. It was so brief that Blue was sure he must have imagined it.

‘I mean. It’s for families. Everyone goes home to spend time with their parents and grandparents and all that stuff. Big family dinner, getting presents for _everyone_. People at _work_ were giving me stuff,’ he said, shaking his head with a snort. _That_ had been confusing. ‘Like I said. Kalosians go nuts for Winterstar. You should see it sometime.’

Red has uncoiled the last of the lights. He fiddled with the battery pack on the end, before he gave up and just pointed it at Pikachu. She zipped up, snapped a spark at it, and the little bulbs lit up. They were traditional colours – pale pinks and teals and golds - and shimmered in his hands, washing the small cave in gentle waves of colour.

‘Weird. They’re so much dimmer than the fire, but they’ve really brightened the place up,’ Blue muttered, mostly to himself. To his surprise, Red nodded. Surprised, Blue stood, laughing.

‘C’mon. Let’s get the dumb antlers set up already and figure out what else your Mom sent you,’ he said, ‘I’m pretty sure there’s a hot chocolate set in here somewhere.’

**Author's Note:**

> I'm 90% sure there's no explicit mention of anything Christmas-y in the games themselves, and I find the idea of implying that Christianity exists in the Pokémon world _really_ weird. So I decided to make a comparable, Pokémon-based holiday up! It was really fun.


End file.
